Good relationships skills are part of being a good leader of one's own life and/or a leader of others. Good relationship skills are related to character, and like good character, they can be learned, practiced, and developed. We are meant to learn these skills primarily in the family, but also at school, with our friends and teammates. We can always learn more and improve upon our relationship skills and correct ourselves when we haven't learned them properly. Relationship skills involve, among other things, understanding our value, checking our attitudes, developing good habits, and dealing with anger and other emotions well.
Understanding Our Value
Understanding our value means that we understand our worth as human beings. It is a value that no one can take away from us. If we are unable to accept ourselves in this fundamental way, we will come to our relationships not out of a sense of fullness but out of neediness. We will enter into relationships more to receive than to give. We will be relying on and placing an unfair burden on others to make us feel valuable. Eventually they will tire of playing this role, and the relationship will end.
Take This Test of How Valuable You Feel
(The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) After each statement, write one of the following: SA = Strongly Agree, A = Agree, D = Disagree, SD = Strongly Disagree 1. I feel that I am a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others.
2. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
3. All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
4. I am able to do things as well as most other people.
5. I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
6. I take a positive attitude toward myself.
7. On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.
8. I wish I could have more respect for myself.
9. I certainly feel useless at times.
10. At times I think I am no good at all.
Score yourself this way:
For statements 1, 2. 4., 6, and 7 give yourself the following points for your answers:
SA = 3
A = 2
D = 1
SD = 0
For statements 3, 5, 8, 9, and 10 give yourself the following points for your answers: SA = 0
A = 1
D = 2
SD = 3
Add it all up. If you scored between 15-25, you are within the normal range of feeling valuable and worthy. If you scored below 15, your self-esteem is low and you need to raise your self-image.
Checking our attitudes Developing and keeping a positive attitude is an important relationship skill. No one likes to be around a complainer or someone who is always unhappy and critical. Being able to notice and regulate our own moods will have a big impact on our relationships. It is not our circumstances that determine our attitude; we do. Life is all about choices. Every situation is a choice. We choose how we react to situations. We choose how people will affect our mood. If something bad happens, the person can choose either to feel sorry for him- or herself, or to learn from it and bring the best out of it he or she can.
Bouncing Back with a Positive Attitude
Bill was sad. He had not made the basketball team. He had made it last year, but this year he had tried out with a sore ankle from a sprain of a few weeks before. Favoring his sore ankle, he had not given his best, and the coach had cut him out. He tried to tell himself he didn't care, but he was so slow and sad around the house, his mother said, "You are disappointed." Bill admitted, "Yeah, I'm disappointed. It makes me wonder if I'm good enough to ever make the team again."
"Anyone would be disappointed," said his mother. "But maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Your ankle needs time to heal. It wouldn't heal right if you played on it. If it doesn't heal right, it could keep you from participating in a lot of different games and sports later on."
When Bill thought of it this way, his spirits lifted. It was true; his ankle wasn't ready to play on yet. Maybe he just needed time. He could try for the team again next year. Bill smiled happily. "What's for dinner, Mom?"
One study discovered that attitude was far more important in people's career success than intelligence, education, talent or luck. The researchers concluded that 85% of success is due to attitude and only 15% to ability. Having a right attitude leads to career success. It leads to success in relationships as well.
A Powerful Friend
Who am I? I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed--you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great individuals and, alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a human. You may run me for a profit or run me for ruin--it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
Who am I?
I am Habit.
[From Sean Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens (New York: Simon & Schuster, a Fireside Book, 1998)]
Good habits, such as working hard and persevering through difficulties, are also important relationship skills. Most habits start out like a thread so thin it can't be seen. Through repetition, that thread becomes entwined into a cord and eventually a rope. Each time we repeat the habit, it becomes stronger and stronger. Bad habits create a rope around our necks that eventually strangles us. How important it is, therefore, to watch the way we think, speak and act.
An old proverb says: "Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny." Leading ourselves into good habits means we will be better at making and keeping relationships. Returning phone calls, favors, keeping our promises, working hard willingly, honoring commitments even when it is hard to do so—these are the habits and skills that reap success in relationships.
Dealing with Anger and Other Emotions
Another important skill in building good relationships is learning to control our negative emotions, such as anger, fear, defensiveness, and resentment. All of us have been hurt in some way or another in the course of our lives. Problems arise when we allow them to fester, never resolving these feelings, and then bring them into our current relationships. The result is that we react in a negative way to a word or action that brings up painful memories. Our reaction has little to do with the present situation. If we do not explore these feelings and understand their origin, we will end up destroying one relationship after another with our out-of-control emotions.
We must find constructive ways of letting loose the steam building up inside of us. Sports and physical activity can help let off steam. So can expressing our anger in a safe way—punching the pillow in our bedroom as if it were the person who made us angry, enlisting a family member to listen to us "vent" about how upset we are, writing our angry thoughts down on paper all help to get negative feelings out without hurting anyone, including ourselves.
Clara's story
"It took me a long time to realize that I couldn't talk to someone about something they had said or done to make me angry until I had cooled down. I always wanted to get my feelings out right in the moment, but then it always ended up in a worse argument. Walking away helped. People always seemed to understand when I said, 'I want to take a walk and think this out a little bit.' Walking would help me cool down. Then, when I talked to the person, I didn't say so many bad things or shout at them. I found I could say the same things, honestly, but not in so mean a way. At lot of times the person who had made me angry was already sorry by the time I got back from my walk!"
It is also helpful to step back and analyze our destructive behavior, such as assuming we know what the other person is thinking, bringing up past hurts and offenses, interrupting rather than hearing the other person out, blaming, accusing, using put-downs, being sarcastic, exaggerating, and not being sincere. All these behaviors damage a relationship. We are being unfair to the other person if we use them.
Instead, we should develop the skills of listening to the other person respectfully, letting them speak first and get their ideas out before we speak. We should stick to the issue at hand rather than dredging up the past. We can speak calmly and confidently rather than using sarcasm and exaggeration, and we can express our hurts and fears sincerely instead of covering them up with blame and accusation of the other person.
An important skill to practice during disagreements is to think of and express appreciation for the other person's good qualities (there are always some!). This makes the other person feel safe to seek out common ground with you, and will calm you down as well.
Taking charge of one's self in the above ways makes for better relationships. It means becoming a person skilled at handling the ins and outs of life and the challenges that relationships present to us all.
Stages of Relationship Bonding
Good relationship skills also involve understanding the various stages of bonding in a developing relationship. In our fast-paced society many people have come to expect and demand immediate results. So we have "fast" food, "instant" messenger service on the internet and "on the spot" coverage of breaking news. With a minimum of effort, we expect to be able to get what we want when we want it. Such expectations, however, do not suit the building of close, long-lasting relationships. These relationships require a great deal of investment over time, and they pass through a series of steps before reaching a stage of deep intimacy. These steps are progressive, building upon each other, and they follow a clear order.
The stages of bonding can be categorized in the following way: 1. Getting to know each other 2. Establishing trust 3. Developing a healthy emotional interdependence based upon common interests 4. Feeling a stake in the relationship 5. Commitment to the friendship
It is impossible to jump over any of these categories, just as a person would not be able to bypass any stage of his or her physical development. Attempting to skip any of the steps will lead the relationship, if it lasts at all, to have one or more unhealthy characteristics, such as naïve trust, distorted judgment, emotional dependency, over-attachment and a lack of real concern for the welfare of the other person. Such a relationship will exhibit elements of anxiety, fear, insecurity and self-centeredness as the partners become too close too fast, motivated more by neediness than to be a true friend to the other. The relationship becomes one of mutual convenience, each side using the other to satisfy some deep-seated need for love. But what they find, however, is not love at all, and the relationship will last only until there comes a point when the "friends" are challenged to demonstrate true concern for each other. For the relationship to survive such a challenge, both sides have to go back and make sure each step has been covered carefully. Good relationships demand a lot of us. Each of us needs to master the skills and virtues needed for good relationships so we can become a leader in our home, neighborhood and among our friends—someone everyone wants to be close to.
Questions for Reflection
1. Do you have value?
2. What gives a person value?
3. What determines our attitude: we ourselves or our circumstances? Explain.
4. Do you agree that our attitude is more important than our ability in determining personal success? Give an example.
5. What are some good habits named in the chapter?
6. How can negative emotions destroy a relationship?
7. What are some ways of controlling negative emotions?
8. What are the main stages of relationship bonding?
Exercise: "Personal Leadership"
Check your level of personal leadership by indicating the degree of your agreement with the following statements:
1. I often question my value and worthiness as a human being.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
2. I find myself complaining a lot. It is difficult for me to see the positive side of a situation.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
3. I have bad habits that I can't seem to stop.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
4. Usually I am able to control any destructive emotions.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
5. I usually decide things on impulse rather than thinking things out first.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
6. I can do just about anything I set my mind to.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
If you expressed agreement with statements 4 and 6 and disagreed with the others, you have a strong sense of responsibility and self-control. If you agreed more with statements 1, 2, 3 and 5, and disagreed with the others, you need to work on taking responsibility.
Personal Exercise: "Controlling Negative Emotions"
Think of the last few arguments or fights that you've had. Did you give in to your negative emotions? What was the response of the other person in these situations? Were there times when you were able to control any negative emotions? What did you do? How did things turn out in these cases?
Introduction
Table of Contents
We are meant to learn these skills primarily in the family, but also at school, with our friends and teammates. We can always learn more and improve upon our relationship skills and correct ourselves when we haven't learned them properly. Relationship skills involve, among other things, understanding our value, checking our attitudes, developing good habits, and dealing with anger and other emotions well.
Understanding Our Value
Understanding our value means that we understand our worth as human beings. It is a value that no one can take away from us. If we are unable to accept ourselves in this fundamental way, we will come to our relationships not out of a sense of fullness but out of neediness. We will enter into relationships more to receive than to give. We will be relying on and placing an unfair burden on others to make us feel valuable. Eventually they will tire of playing this role, and the relationship will end.Take This Test of How Valuable You Feel
(The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale)After each statement, write one of the following: SA = Strongly Agree, A = Agree, D = Disagree, SD = Strongly Disagree
1. I feel that I am a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others.
2. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
3. All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
4. I am able to do things as well as most other people.
5. I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
6. I take a positive attitude toward myself.
7. On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.
8. I wish I could have more respect for myself.
9. I certainly feel useless at times.
10. At times I think I am no good at all.
Score yourself this way:
For statements 1, 2. 4., 6, and 7 give yourself the following points for your answers:
SA = 3
A = 2
D = 1
SD = 0
For statements 3, 5, 8, 9, and 10 give yourself the following points for your answers:
SA = 0
A = 1
D = 2
SD = 3
Add it all up. If you scored between 15-25, you are within the normal range of feeling valuable and worthy. If you scored below 15, your self-esteem is low and you need to raise your self-image.
Checking our attitudesDeveloping and keeping a positive attitude is an important relationship skill. No one likes to be around a complainer or someone who is always unhappy and critical. Being able to notice and regulate our own moods will have a big impact on our relationships. It is not our circumstances that determine our attitude; we do. Life is all about choices. Every situation is a choice. We choose how we react to situations. We choose how people will affect our mood. If something bad happens, the person can choose either to feel sorry for him- or herself, or to learn from it and bring the best out of it he or she can.
Bouncing Back with a Positive Attitude
Bill was sad. He had not made the basketball team. He had made it last year, but this year he had tried out with a sore ankle from a sprain of a few weeks before. Favoring his sore ankle, he had not given his best, and the coach had cut him out. He tried to tell himself he didn't care, but he was so slow and sad around the house, his mother said, "You are disappointed." Bill admitted, "Yeah, I'm disappointed. It makes me wonder if I'm good enough to ever make the team again.""Anyone would be disappointed," said his mother. "But maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Your ankle needs time to heal. It wouldn't heal right if you played on it. If it doesn't heal right, it could keep you from participating in a lot of different games and sports later on."
When Bill thought of it this way, his spirits lifted. It was true; his ankle wasn't ready to play on yet. Maybe he just needed time. He could try for the team again next year. Bill smiled happily. "What's for dinner, Mom?"
One study discovered that attitude was far more important in people's career success than intelligence, education, talent or luck. The researchers concluded that 85% of success is due to attitude and only 15% to ability. Having a right attitude leads to career success. It leads to success in relationships as well.
A Powerful Friend
Who am I?I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed--you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great individuals and, alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a human. You may run me for a profit or run me for ruin--it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
Who am I?
I am Habit.
[From Sean Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens (New York: Simon & Schuster, a Fireside Book, 1998)]
Good habits, such as working hard and persevering through difficulties, are also important relationship skills. Most habits start out like a thread so thin it can't be seen. Through repetition, that thread becomes entwined into a cord and eventually a rope. Each time we repeat the habit, it becomes stronger and stronger. Bad habits create a rope around our necks that eventually strangles us. How important it is, therefore, to watch the way we think, speak and act.
An old proverb says: "Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny." Leading ourselves into good habits means we will be better at making and keeping relationships. Returning phone calls, favors, keeping our promises, working hard willingly, honoring commitments even when it is hard to do so—these are the habits and skills that reap success in relationships.
Dealing with Anger and Other Emotions
Another important skill in building good relationships is learning to control our negative emotions, such as anger, fear, defensiveness, and resentment. All of us have been hurt in some way or another in the course of our lives. Problems arise when we allow them to fester, never resolving these feelings, and then bring them into our current relationships. The result is that we react in a negative way to a word or action that brings up painful memories. Our reaction has little to do with the present situation. If we do not explore these feelings and understand their origin, we will end up destroying one relationship after another with our out-of-control emotions.We must find constructive ways of letting loose the steam building up inside of us. Sports and physical activity can help let off steam. So can expressing our anger in a safe way—punching the pillow in our bedroom as if it were the person who made us angry, enlisting a family member to listen to us "vent" about how upset we are, writing our angry thoughts down on paper all help to get negative feelings out without hurting anyone, including ourselves.
Clara's story
"It took me a long time to realize that I couldn't talk to someone about something they had said or done to make me angry until I had cooled down. I always wanted to get my feelings out right in the moment, but then it always ended up in a worse argument. Walking away helped. People always seemed to understand when I said, 'I want to take a walk and think this out a little bit.' Walking would help me cool down. Then, when I talked to the person, I didn't say so many bad things or shout at them. I found I could say the same things, honestly, but not in so mean a way. At lot of times the person who had made me angry was already sorry by the time I got back from my walk!"It is also helpful to step back and analyze our destructive behavior, such as assuming we know what the other person is thinking, bringing up past hurts and offenses, interrupting rather than hearing the other person out, blaming, accusing, using put-downs, being sarcastic, exaggerating, and not being sincere. All these behaviors damage a relationship. We are being unfair to the other person if we use them.
Instead, we should develop the skills of listening to the other person respectfully, letting them speak first and get their ideas out before we speak. We should stick to the issue at hand rather than dredging up the past. We can speak calmly and confidently rather than using sarcasm and exaggeration, and we can express our hurts and fears sincerely instead of covering them up with blame and accusation of the other person.
An important skill to practice during disagreements is to think of and express appreciation for the other person's good qualities (there are always some!). This makes the other person feel safe to seek out common ground with you, and will calm you down as well.
Taking charge of one's self in the above ways makes for better relationships. It means becoming a person skilled at handling the ins and outs of life and the challenges that relationships present to us all.
Stages of Relationship Bonding
Good relationship skills also involve understanding the various stages of bonding in a developing relationship. In our fast-paced society many people have come to expect and demand immediate results. So we have "fast" food, "instant" messenger service on the internet and "on the spot" coverage of breaking news. With a minimum of effort, we expect to be able to get what we want when we want it. Such expectations, however, do not suit the building of close, long-lasting relationships. These relationships require a great deal of investment over time, and they pass through a series of steps before reaching a stage of deep intimacy. These steps are progressive, building upon each other, and they follow a clear order.The stages of bonding can be categorized in the following way:
1. Getting to know each other
2. Establishing trust
3. Developing a healthy emotional interdependence based upon common interests
4. Feeling a stake in the relationship
5. Commitment to the friendship
It is impossible to jump over any of these categories, just as a person would not be able to bypass any stage of his or her physical development. Attempting to skip any of the steps will lead the relationship, if it lasts at all, to have one or more unhealthy characteristics, such as naïve trust, distorted judgment, emotional dependency, over-attachment and a lack of real concern for the welfare of the other person. Such a relationship will exhibit elements of anxiety, fear, insecurity and self-centeredness as the partners become too close too fast, motivated more by neediness than to be a true friend to the other. The relationship becomes one of mutual convenience, each side using the other to satisfy some deep-seated need for love. But what they find, however, is not love at all, and the relationship will last only until there comes a point when the "friends" are challenged to demonstrate true concern for each other. For the relationship to survive such a challenge, both sides have to go back and make sure each step has been covered carefully. Good relationships demand a lot of us. Each of us needs to master the skills and virtues needed for good relationships so we can become a leader in our home, neighborhood and among our friends—someone everyone wants to be close to.
Questions for Reflection
1. Do you have value?2. What gives a person value?
3. What determines our attitude: we ourselves or our circumstances? Explain.
4. Do you agree that our attitude is more important than our ability in determining personal success? Give an example.
5. What are some good habits named in the chapter?
6. How can negative emotions destroy a relationship?
7. What are some ways of controlling negative emotions?
8. What are the main stages of relationship bonding?
Exercise: "Personal Leadership"
Check your level of personal leadership by indicating the degree of your agreement with the following statements:1. I often question my value and worthiness as a human being.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
2. I find myself complaining a lot. It is difficult for me to see the positive side of a situation.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
3. I have bad habits that I can't seem to stop.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
4. Usually I am able to control any destructive emotions.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
5. I usually decide things on impulse rather than thinking things out first.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
6. I can do just about anything I set my mind to.
_Strongly agree _Agree _Disagree _Strongly disagree
If you expressed agreement with statements 4 and 6 and disagreed with the others, you have a strong sense of responsibility and self-control. If you agreed more with statements 1, 2, 3 and 5, and disagreed with the others, you need to work on taking responsibility.
Personal Exercise: "Controlling Negative Emotions"
Think of the last few arguments or fights that you've had. Did you give in to your negative emotions? What was the response of the other person in these situations? Were there times when you were able to control any negative emotions? What did you do? How did things turn out in these cases?